20 Seconds Per Slide
Cycles, Ceremony, and Storytelling at Santa Fe Pecha Kucha Night
The Pecha Kucha speakers gather with Max Neutra and Sorakamol Prapasiri, our amazing creative guides
Last month, I had the true delight of speaking at Santa Fe’s 25th Pecha Kucha night, hosted by Creative Santa Fe. The theme was “Cycles,” and presenters from all walks of life shared stories of recycling, bicycling, breaking personal cycles, and more.
I spoke about my journey into the realm ritual and experience design—how writing custom poems for loved ones evolved into a practice of designing ceremonies for life’s major thresholds. In just 6 minutes and 40 seconds (with 20 slides that auto-advanced every 20 seconds), I traced how my closeness with death has deepened my relationship to life, love and reverence.
It was a story about the ordinary magic that can occur when we make space to be with grief and to say thank you for all that we’ve been on the receiving end of. An entire lifetime’s worth of love packed into a format that leaves no room for rambling.
🎥 You can watch the full talk here
I'm grateful to all the people who helped shape this story and to the community that gathered to listen. And to my fellow presenters: thank you for reminding us how many ways there are to live, to break, to return.
P.S. If this kind of reflection speaks to you, I’m currently teaching a four-week course on experience design and ritual craft.
